Pernille Rudlin - Rudlin Consulting

About Pernille Rudlin

Pernille Rudlin was brought up partly in Japan and partly in the UK. She is fluent in Japanese, and lived in Japan for 9 years.

She spent nearly a decade at Mitsubishi Corporation working in their London operations and Tokyo headquarters in sales and marketing and corporate planning and also including a stint in their International Human Resource Development Office.

More recently she had a global senior role as Director of External Relations, International Business, at Fujitsu, the leading Japanese information and communication technology company and the biggest Japanese employer in the UK, focusing on ensuring the company’s corporate messages in Japan reach the world outside.

Pernille Rudlin holds a B.A. with honours from Oxford University in Modern History and Economics and an M.B.A. from INSEAD and she is the author of several books and articles on cross cultural communications and business.

Since starting Japan Intercultural Consulting’s operations in Europe in 2004, Pernille has conducted seminars for Japanese and European companies in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, UAE, the UK and the USA, on Japanese cultural topics, post merger integration and on working with different European cultures.

Pernille is a non-executive director of Japan House London, an Associate of the Centre for Japanese Studies at the University of East Anglia and she is also a trustee of the Japan Society of the UK.

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Here are my most recent posts

Fujikura to close AFL Telecommunications Europe in UK

It has just been disclosed in their latest annual report that AFL Telecommunications Europe will close. The company manufactured and distributed fibre optic cables in Swindon, UK, employing nearly 100 people. AFL Telecommunications was acquired from Alcoa by America Fujikura in 2005. The decision to close was made in March 2024, and after consultation, it was decided to wind up the company by the end of 2024.

AFL Telecommunications continues to be headquartered in the USA, and has subsidiaries AFL Telecommunications UK (formerly FibreFab, acquired in 2013 – which develops, assembles and sales fibre optic components and data networking products), AFL Telecommunications GmbH in Germany and AFL Telecommunications Poland Sp. z.o.o. in Poland – a manufacturing operation which was opened in 2023.

UPDATE: Italian company Tratos Cavi has acquired AFL Telecommunications Europe and UK as of 3 July 2024

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Mitsubishi Materials to acquire German tungsten powder producer H.C. Starck

Mitsubishi Materials is to acquire Germany tungsten powder producer H.C. Starck Holdings from its current owner, Vietnamese conglomerate Masan for $134m. Tungsten is used in carbide tools for making auto engine and aircraft components and is already a product line for Mitsubishi Materials in the USA and China. It will become one of the largest suppliers globally with this acquisition.

H.C. Starck employs 540 people at three production sites in Germany, Canada and China plus sales offices in the U.S. and Japan. MMC has several hundred employees in Europe in a range of companies including previous acquisitions such as Luvata.

Another subsidiary of H.C. Starck, in the ceramics sector, was acquired by Kyocera in 2019.

Asahi Kasei to acquire Swedish drugmaker Calliditas

Asahi Kasei has made a cash offer to acquire Sweden’s Calliditas Therapeutics in a deal worth 11.16 billion Swedish crowns ($1.06 billion). Calliditas has full FDA approval for its primary immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) treatment Tarpeyo and is listed on Nasdaq in New York and Stockholm.

Asahi Kasei already owns several companies in Europe, employing around 650 people, stemming from various acquisitions made since 2012, but is mainly known for chemicals related building materials such as insulation, coating and rubber. It states that this acquisition is to establish a presence in Europe (presumably in pharmaceuticals), initially focused on R&D; and to expand the scope of its in-licensing and new drug development opportunities.

Calliditas has around 200 employees with offices in Sweden, France, US and Switzerland.

Top 30 Japanese companies in EMEA – not much growth in 2023

We have finalised the Top 30 rankings for the largest Japanese employers in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region (download available below). As before, the extent to which Japanese companies take the UN Sustainable Development Goals pretty seriously has had a noticeably positive effect on disclosure of data and transparency. But there are still some laggards in terms of the metric we focus on, which is the number and location of employees outside of Japan.

Overall, the year from 2021/2 to 2022/3 has been one of very little growth for Japanese companies in Europe.

83% of companies have the majority of their staff overseas

More often than not, the detail on human resources in terms of diversity and inclusion in the various sustainability reports published by Japan headquarters is all about employees in Japan. And yet, 83% of the companies in our rankings have more than 50% of their employees overseas. Those with less than 50% of employees overseas are the ICT companies – NTT, Fujitsu and NEC, along with Toyota and Asahi Glass. In some cases no clear figures were given for Japan and overseas employees, so we estimated them based on employee numbers give for consolidated (Japan and overseas) and non-consolidated (which we took to be the Japan parent company).

The non-disclosers

NTT does not disclose the number and location of its staff, which is perhaps excusable as the huge consolidation and reorganisation of its group companies and overseas acquisitions is still working its way through.

The two recruitment giants, Outsourcing and Recruit are notably lacking in transparency on employee numbers. The excuse may be that is difficult to calculate numbers on a consistent basis, given that in some countries, temporary workers on their books will count as employees. Outsourcing has had to delist from the Tokyo Stock Exchange and may be bought out by Bain, following investigation for fraud and inflating revenues and expenses. We estimate Outsourcing is now the second largest Japanese corporate employer in Europe, after Sumitomo Electric Industries, pushing Yazaki to third place.

The other companies who do not disclose regional data on employees are Sony, Toyota Tsusho, Japan Tobacco, Dentsu, Toyota Industries, Kyocera, Mitsubishi Electric and Mitsubishi Corporation. Japan Tobacco does not even disclose how many employees are outside Japan at all. Some estimate can be made by looking at the employee numbers given for each location, on their website however.

No growth?

The lack of data from Outsourcing makes it very difficult to estimate the trend for the whole Top 30. We think their acquisitions in Europe over 2018 to 2021 may have grown the European workforce to 48,000. If we assume that this held level in 2022/3, then there are around 629,000 employees working for the biggest Japanese companies across the region and growth was only around 1%.

The only companies who grew significantly in the region from FY 2021/2 to FY 2022/3 were Daikin (10%) and Dentsu (6%). Shrinkage was noticeable in the automotive sector – Nissan (-22%) . Toyota Motor (-5%) and Toyota Industries (-6%). Honda has dropped out of the Top 30 since the closure of manufacturing in the UK, but has shrunk further by 3%. NSG, which supplies automotive glass, has shrunk by 5% over the year.

The influence of Europe through acquisitions

The total employed in EMEA as a proportion of all employees in the Top 30 companies is 16%. Those companies with significantly above that proportion of employees in EMEA are NSG, Outsourcing, Japan Tobacco, Toyota Tsusho and the Asahi Group. The Asahi Group acquired many beer and alcohol brands in Europe around eight years ago, which was also when Toyota Tsusho acquired CFAO, a France headquartered company with substantial operations in Africa. NSG acquired Pilkington in 2006 and Japan Tobacco acquired Gallaher in 2007.

The lack of any large scale acquisitions since 2021 is undoubtedly one of the factors behind the lack of growth of Japanese companies in the region.

Click the link below for a pdf (£3 + VAT) of the Top 30 Japanese employers in the EMEA region, showing ranking in 2022 and 2023, total global employees, % of employees overseas and number employed in EMEA:

DOWNLOAD OF TOP 30 JAPANESE COMPANIES IN EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA

Selling off the tiger cubs

Something that we’ve been noticing for a while is that Japanese trading companies (sogo shosha) have been divesting long held assets, particularly in Japan and in the UK. These assets are known as toranoko or tiger cubs, meaning a treasure in Japanese. It seems the sogo shosha are no longer afraid to sell assets if they do not meet their desired investment efficiency or if the proceeds from the sale exceed medium- to long-term profit expectations.

In the case of Mitsubishi Corporation (who have recently declared they no longer want to be referred to as a trading company), this has included selling off 50% of Lawsons, the convenience store chain, in Japan and in the UK, Princes Foods has been up for sale since 2022.

These divestments are partly to do with the current President, Nakanishi Katsuya, coming from the typically hard headed and unsentimental Heavy Machinery group, making a big break from his predecessor Kakiuichi Takeo’s strategy. Kakiuchi came from the Foods Group and was President of Mitsubishi Corp from 2016 to 2022. Mitsubishi Corp increased its stake in Lawson in 2017, having become the main shareholder in 2001, taking over from Daiei. You might think from the name that Lawson is an American company – and it was, originally, eventually becoming CircleK. More here on Wikipedia.

Other divestments in the food business are of shareholdings which pre-date Kakiuchi – Mitsubishi is also looking to reduce its stake in KFC Japan, the majority of which it acquired in 2007. Princes Foods was acquired in 1989 and in turn has its roots in Mitsubishi’s involvement in canned food dating back to before WWII.*

The divestments are not just in food. Mitsubishi also sold its 20% stake in Fujifilm Diosynth to Fujifilm, in June 2023 and sold off various mining ventures that year too. Other sogo shosha are also divesting in the UK and elsewhere. Sumitomo Corp and its partner Osaka Gas pulled out of a UK water company and an American tyre retailer – the rumour persists they may want to sell off the UK’s Kwik-Fit and associated tyre wholesaling businesses as well. Itochu Corporation also sold its consumer finance business in Indonesia last year.

As to where the money made is then invested – the answer is mainly not Europe, and a focus on energy, minerals and digital. Mitsui is investing in Taiwanese off shore wind power, Mitsubishi in a US data center, Itochu is buying back Itochu Techno Solutions, Marubeni is investing in a Chilean copper mine and Sumitomo Corporation in an Australian LNG project.

*Update 28th May – Mitsubishi Corporation has just announced that it has agreed to sell Princes for £700m to Italian company Newlat.

MUFG Bank to invest in Hitachi’s UK based EV bus business

Hitachi set up two companies in the UK in 2023 – Hitachi ZeroCarbon Battery Holding and Hitachi ZeroCarbon Ltd – which lease storage batteries for EV buses. The company has expertise in the maintenance and management of storage batteries, and provides storage batteries on a flat-rate subscription basis.

MUFG Bank has just announced that it will initially invest £7.4m in the business and will further increase its investment in line with Hitachi ZeroCarbon’s business expansion. This is part of its “business co-creation investment” strategy whereby it is increasing the supply of risk funds through co-investments in companies’ new businesses and investments in startups. So far, it has invested in companies such as Astroscale Holdings, a Japanese company which is working on removing space debris.

Hamamatsu to acquire Danish laser and photonic crystal fiber company NKT Photonics

Japanese optical device manufacturer Hamamatsu Photonics K.K. has announced that the Danish Business Authority (DBA) has approved the sale of NKT Photonics to Belgium based Photonics Management Europe S.R.L., a 100% owned subsidiary of Hamamatsu Photonics.

The DBA blocked the planned sale a year ago for security reasons and Hamamatsu reapplied in July 2023. The acquisition was subject to regulatory approvals in Germany, the UK and the US.

Hamamatsu has around 5,500 employees, of whom around 282 are in Europe, Middle East and Africa region, including Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden and the UK. Over 75% of Hamamatsu’s sales are outside Japan.

NKT Photonics is owned by NKT, and is a supplier of high-performance fiber lasers and photonic crystal fibers with around 400 employees in the USA, UK and Switzerland.

Yusen Logistics Benelux to acquire PartsExpress B.V.

NYK group company Yusen Logistics Benelux is to acquire Dutch autoparts delivery company PartsExpress B.V. PartsExpress has 127 employees with operations in the Netherlands and Belgium.

This adds to other recent acquisitions in Europe by Yusen Logistics such as Global Freight Solutions.

Yusen Logistics employs over 8,500 people in Europe, Middle East and Africa, making it one of the 30 largest Japanese employers in the region.

ONO Pharma to set up hub in Europe after acquisition of US company Deciphera

ONO Pharmaceutical has announced its intention to acquire Nasdaq listed US cancer drug developer Deciphera, for US$2.4bn. This is the largest acquisition ONO has ever made, and is in anticipation of its own cancer drug, Opdivo, going off patent in 2028.

Deciphera has already developed Qinlock, a cancer treatment drug and is developing a drug for blood cancer treatment complications and has developed a treatment for benign tumors in joints which is in the final stages of clinical trials in Europe and the U.S. and is scheduled to be submitted for approval in 2024.

Deciphera is headquartered in Massachusetts and has around 400 employees, including operations in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. There is a UK company too, but it is not trading and does not have any employees.

ONO on the other hand only has one subsidiary in Europe, in the UK, employing around 50 people. ONO says it will expand its development and sales hub on the U.S. East Coast to around 170 people and will set up a hub in Europe.

Hitachi to acquire Germany’s MA Micro Automation

Hitachi will acquire German factory automation company MA Micro Automation for 71.5 million euros. MA Micro Automation was established in 2003 and manufactures factory production equipment, transport equipment, image inspection systems, employing around 200 people.

Although it is quite a small scale acquisition, it adds to the $1.4bn acquisition Hitachi made in 2019 of American company JR Automation. JR Automation has an operation in France. It also tips Hitachi’s power balance in Europe further towards Germany, following the acquisition of ABB’s Power Grid Systems in 2020 and adds to the over 60% of employees who are based outside Japan.

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